Friday, October 7, 2011

In September I moved to Oakland and am living with one of my best friends in the whole world, we've known each other since 7th grade! I sadly left my Gallery Director position and drove out here with my buddy Leyland and my dog Tripp! So far it's been very exciting!

Anyway you can always stay up to date with my daily activities here at my blog Sparrow & Urchin. I also posted the pictures from my drive out west to Cali.

I'm also now obsessed with Instagram! My username is sparrow_urchin

Currently I'm in the middle of possibly redesigning my website, making only one blog (Sparrow & Urchin) encompass both art and life, and also starting a custom print, card, invite shop. So lot's in the works right now!!! Oh and I got a tattoo!

Be sure to check back often, and get a pet portrait! They make great gifts!!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

So I may have mentioned I was also in a group art show in town... So here you guys are...

"A Little Help from my Friends"

My Junior year in college ('07) I experimented with painting on linen and incorporating embroidery and multiple layers of canvas... My most successful piece was this one, "Rebbecca Rolfe Learns to Sew"

Anyway with all the turmoil of my life I've decided to got back to that experiment. I have a great fondness for sewing and embroidery and am excited to start this again.

This piece I painted the girl on the main canvas and the hand and birds on a separate canvas, then cut those out and embroidered them onto the main. I made the mistake though of using Cotton Duck Canvas instead of Linen... and may I say that was near impossible... I wasn't able to do all the embroidery that I wanted.

The idea of this piece goes along with what has been happening with me lately. That sometimes you have to start sewing yourself back together, making yourself presentable and feeling good, and while you do that you have to allow your friends to help give you the tools in order to pull yourself together.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I did a guest post on a friends style blog, Alyson is Neat, and showed how to make a Grecian Tunic. And I did a little illustration with it. I think it's art related enough so I thought I throw it up on this here art blog. Here it is and the final product:

Here are the instructions I wrote:

So here's what you need to create this tunic, it only took a couple hours and can be dressed up and is still comfy enough to sit around the house. For my fabric I used a remnant I had bought from a fabric store, it's a silk crepe so it would be really flowy. I only needed about a yard.

To start I first measured how big I wanted the tunic, I wanted it about to my elbows and at least 27" long (the zippers length), after I cut out two rectangles which with my measurements were 40 inches wide by 30 inches long. I cut one rectangle in half for the back and sewed on the zipper. Then I faced the two rectangles face to face and sewed the top leaving about 12 inches in the middle open for my head (important). Then sewed the sides leaving again about 12 inches open at the top for my arms (that's important too!). After that I turned the shirt right side out and figured out where I wanted my waist and cut slits on the front and back for a belt or sash... And voila! You have a homemade Grecian tunic. I hope my instructions were understandable :D

Thursday, September 9, 2010

These are a couple watercolors I did for the show. I haven't used watercolor since freshman year but it was fun to experiment... I think next I'm going to try out pastels next, I love them freshman year.

Sorry these aren't very good pictures, they aren't scans just quick shots. I'll get better images.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Here's just some cute pictures from my work. This is Sherri and I, she was my awesome intern from State who is majoring in interior design. She helped me re-hang the front room and was so great to have around. I miss her so much.

That was the day she said my legs look antique... hahaha cause they were so white. Oh we had such great times running around the Design Center and trying to sit and try all the chairs. I called it "Goldielocksing"